Tag: psychology

It’s taken me 20 years to kick this addiction. Or, at least, not giving in daily. Since it’s difficult for me to write about this topic, this essay will probably be good for me. Unfortunately, I can’t find an easy way to say the problem directly. Similar to writing “My Penultimate Trip,” it’s a topic I’ve avoided, and I felt much better after writing that essay. Here goes: I no longer indulge in viewing pornography daily!

While painting this inconsequential accent wall, I thought about how Trishna (left) and John (right) might paint in “TheStory.” Trishna might lock her breaks, dip her roller with extension pole into a paint tray, paint one section, move, and repeat. John might then get the finer details along the corners. Since painting takes preparation, planning – and when working with others, teamwork, collaboration, and delegation of duties – how well would they handle any possible friction?

I’d never seen moldy coffee before. But there it was. An innocent example showcasing the disrepair that place was when I arrived, and not to brag, but I cleaned that place up quite well. Between that, my time moving furniture, knolling, 5S methodology, and philosophizing on the psychological dependencies of clutter, I’m becoming better at cleaning up the crap… I mean, clutter. Let’s run through six ideas I came up with while cleaning my workbench.

The doctor returned from his lunch break, a carefully regimented respite to relax his brain by exploring the nuances of the campus with a sandwich and coffee, to find his microscope wasn’t working. The door was locked. Nothing seemed disturbed. He tried a few things before calling in for help. “IT, this is Sam.” “Hi Sam, Dr. Florigen. My microscope isn’t working.” “Can we run some tests over the phone or should I run over?”

How often do you meet new people? Not just regurgitating scripts during transactional interactions with humans, either, how often do you allow yourself open up so that new people can meet you? That does require the vulnerability of letting your guard down, inviting people to see your ego’s grit, and possibly getting hurt. “TheStory” will focus on many people and encounters, centering around Trishna (left) and John (right), almost as guides through their world.

How did this happen? Is there a correlation between my childhood raised secondarily by videogames and my reality where much of it involves tempering my overexposure to reality to avoid finding myself in a drunken stupor? I doubt the hours I spent playing games like Mario, Final Fantasy, or EarthBound caused this. Encouraged an addictive framework? Perhaps. Spend another 10 minutes to level up, throw yourself to the mercy of inebriation, only to rinse and repeat?

Through many thousands of words on self-improvement, “you’ll be fine[1]” should be the overarching mantra that glues it all together. We must now endure an unprecedented amount of stress, from work and others, in this modern reality. Wasn’t the future suppose to be easier? More stress-free? Instead we must find coping mechanisms in inebriation, toys, and escapism to cope. “What happened? We never used to need to worry like this.” “It’s stress. It affects everything [2,3].”

The ideal world would not have any villains. We’d go about our peaceful days without conflict. This “drama-free” world would not be functional, however, because by our very natures we have different interests and therefore investments. I’d rather wake up early to write broadly about how John and Trishna (right), main characters of “TheStory” might overcome adversity, here shown as Dr. Mindbender (left). You might prefer clicking on the link/image below to continue reading.

I’ve been raked over the coals over asking to keep the dollar per hour “I earned as goodwill for my work on [ailing project][1],” reamed for talking to other recruiters within the agency over roles, railed on for asking for certain rates, and have dealt with enough recruiters to see their manipulation a mile away. Here’s a recent conversation with some recruiter that reached out about a project. See if you can spot the manipulation:

I don’t hide behind my pseudonym because I’m nervous about what I’ve written. If I posted the more pointed content from this series on professional networking websites, I’m sure there’d be equal parts appreciation and aggression. It’s mainly practicality necessitating innocently witnessing manipulation tactics in action, so I can later write about those parlor tricks. When/if there’s a point where my name is synonymous with my content, then they’d know I can see their hand.